La cena
2017 · 10m · España
Directed by Andrés Barahona, Laura Albor
Genres: comedy, family, satire
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, theatrical
Antonio's parents are proud of their son: he will be the one to take charge of the winery, his family's activity for several generations. However, one night Antonio arranges to have dinner with them; he wants to introduce them to his girlfriend, because thanks to her he has discovered he cannot keep 'murdering' fruits — he has become an 'ovolacteocarnipescarian'.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A dinner-table ambush dressed up as family comedy—except the real target is every sacred institution at once: dynasty, tradition, masculinity, consumption itself. The fact that it's genuinely funny while dismantling the winery mythology makes it exactly the kind of film that looks slight until you realize it's been sharpening a knife the whole time.
The film constructs its absurdist argument with classical restraint—the dinner-table staging recalls a long lineage of family-drama confrontation scenes, but deliberately defangs the form by refusing melodrama in favor of conceptual precision. It's formally aware of what it's deconstructing.
The entire film pivots on a single recurring sound choice: the ambient dread of wine glasses and cutlery, which gradually becomes unbearable as Antonio's confession unfolds, transforming intimate family dinner acoustics into something claustrophobic and accusatory.